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Twins broadcasts could change channels with incoming court ruling
By Thursday, a bankruptcy court judge is expected to decide whether Major League Baseball can take over broadcasts from Bally Sports.
MINNEAPOLIS — A bankruptcy case playing out in Texas could change the way Minnesotans watch the Twins play baseball as early as Thursday.
Major League Baseball is locked in a payment dispute with Diamond Sports Group, the parent company of Bally Sports North, which broadcasts games for the Twins, Lynx, Wolves, and Wild.
Diamond Sports Group declared bankruptcy in March and the process has complicated its contracts, and payments, with several MLB teams.
On Tuesday, the San Diego Padres became the first team to part ways with Bally after Diamond Sports Group notified the team that it would not be making a scheduled payment to continue broadcasting games.
The team quickly announced a plan to offer games on different channels for local fans who are existing cable subscribers. The team also announced that it would lift local blackout restrictions for MLB streaming options. That means that local fans will now be able to stream games without a cable plan for $19.99 a month or $74.99 for the rest of the season.
Star Tribune Digital Sports Editor, Michael Rand, has been following the saga for months, and reporter Kent Erdahl spoke with him about what a transition might look like, and how it could impact fans of all kinds of Minnesota teams.
Kent Erdahl: “What’s going to happen to the broadcast teams if tomorrow the Twins are going on their own with MLB?”
Michael Rand: “What’s been reported with the Padres is that they kept the broadcast team, kept the play-by-play, kept the same analysts, so I don’t think much about the broadcast itself changes, at least not right away.”
Erdahl: “One of the things that I found interesting about San Diego is that they said there will be many more people who will actually be able to watch the team now.”
Rand: “Yeah, because there’s just more access to (the games). That’s one thing I always hear after writing about this issue for startribune.com or talking about it on the Daily Delivery Podcast. People are always saying, ‘I can’t get the games anymore. I signed up for this, that, and the other thing, and now Bally Sports isn’t on those channels,’ or ‘I’ve cut the cord and now I don’t get this.” So making it available over a sort of direct-to-consumer streaming platform, all of a sudden they’re saying in San Diego, it will triple their potential audience. Teams are starting to realize that there’s a benefit to getting your product in front of people instead of trying to hide it from them.”
Erdahl: “That’s the potentially positive side of all this. The other side would be if someone wants that kind of all-in-one package with all the local teams.”
Erdahl: “Are we going to have that anymore?”
Rand: “That’s a great question. I think in the short term you still will. The model we’re seeing play out in San Diego is that if you still have Direct TV or you still have their bigger cable carriers, you’re still going to get that. It might just be on a different channel. But if you get to the point where you don’t want to have the cable bundle or the satellite bundle but you like the Wolves, you like the Twins, the Timberwolves, the Vikings, the Lynx, you like the Minnesota United. Those all used to be carried by Bally Sports. But the United games are all on Apple TV right now, and there could soon be a lot of places you have to go to get these teams. That means there could be a lot of little subscriptions you have to pay for. If you add them all up, will that still be cost savings to the consumer? I don’t know.”
Erdahl: “I wanted to ask you about the Lynx and the Wild and the Wolves. What’s their status with Bally Sports North? Is up in the air with this bankruptcy as well?”
Rand: “I haven’t heard anything directly about those teams yet. Now, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a question about how that all plays out. A lot of Lynx games are on Bally Sports North right now. I think 31 out of their 40 games this year are on Bally Sports North. What I understand is that the Wild and the Wolves at least have a couple of years left on their contract, so depending on how bankruptcy court plays out with those teams, it doesn’t sound like those are as imminent.
With the Twins, we’ve been hearing so much about it because regardless of how all of this litigation plays out, their contract is up with Bally’s at the end of this year.”
Erdahl: “Kind of a new era of free agency?”
Rand: “Kind of. All these teams are trying to figure out how to get games to fans. All people really want is access to teams at a price that they feel like is fair and reasonable and for a long time the regional sports model worked, right? But then people started cutting the cord, then people started kind of buying these streaming packages, and it’s kind of created this fragmentation where you kind of don’t know exactly where it’s all headed.
I don’t think things are going to become more easy. I think they’re only going to become more complicated as time goes on.”
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CHANHASSEN, Minn. — Predicted weather conditions have triggered a Red Flag Warning for virtually the entire state of Minnesota Thursday, indicating an extreme danger for wildfires.
The National Weather Service (NWS) says the forecast – extremely low humidity and dewpoints and wind gusts in the neighborhood of 40 mph – will exacerbate already tinder-dry conditions, increasing the likelihood that a wildfire could spark and quickly spread.
Here are the counties impacted, and when Red Flag Warnings will be in effect.
8:00 a.m. through 7:00 p.m. – Northwest Minnesota: Becker, Beltrami, Clay, Clearwater, Grant, Hubbard, Kittson, Lake Of The Woods, Mahnomen, Marshall, Norman, Otter Tail, Pennington, Polk, Red Lake, Roseau, Wadena and Wilkin.
11:00 a.m. through 7:00 p.m. – Central and southern Minnesota: Anoka, Benton, Big Stone, Blue Earth, Brown, Carver, Chippewa, Chisago, Cottonwood, Dakota, Dodge, Douglas, Faribault, Fillmore, Freeborn, Goodhue, Hennepin, Houston, Isanti, Jackson, Kanabec, Kandiyohi, Lac Qui Parle, Le Sueur, Lincoln, Lyon, Martin, McLeod, Meeker, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Mower, Murray, Nicollet, Nobles, Olmsted, Pipestone, Pope, Ramsey, Redwood, Renville, Rice, Rock, Scott, Sherburne, Sibley, Stearns, Steele, Stevens, Swift, Todd, Traverse, Wabasha, Waseca, Washington, Watonwan, Winona, Wright and Yellow Medicine.
12:00 a.m. through 7:00 p.m. – Northeast Minnesota: Aitkin, Carlton, Cass, Crow Wing, Itasca, Koochiching, Pine, and St. Louis.
Additionally a Special Weather Statement has been issued for Cook and Lake counties in northeast Minnesota where wind and relative humidity are predicted to produce near-critical fire weather conditions. Outdoor burning is not advised.
Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is telling residents to refrain from burning in counties where a Red Flag Warning is in effect, and to check any recent burning to ensure the fire is completely out. The DNR will not issue or activate open burning permits for large vegetative debris burning during a Red Flag Warning, and campfires are strongly discouraged.
“When fire risk is this high it’s important to be careful with anything could spark a wildfire,” said Karen Harrison, DNR wildfire prevention specialist.
Justin Ekelman’s business, Shrimply the Best, has a fan following.
MARICOPA COUNTY, Ariz. — There are things you expect to see along a desert highway and then there are Justin Ekelman’s hand-painted signs.
Drivers on State Route 347 between Phoenix and Maricopa usually pass them before they see the old, white cargo van Ekelman parks in a dirt lot off Riggs Road.
He is a man, with a van, who sells seafood.
“I do this year-round, I sweat it out and then when the winter comes, the snowbirds come back and it’s amazing,” Ekelman said. “You can’t bring enough; you can’t fill this thing enough.”
He is also not oblivious to what some people think when they see his Pike Place Market on four wheels: Seafood from a van in the desert? It seems a little sketchy. And a little dangerous.
But if you stop, Ekelman will proudly show you his frozen food vendor permit and other licenses one needs to sell shrimp and scallops on the side of the road.
Ekelman’s business, Shrimply the Best, has a fan following. In fact, one-third of voters in a recent InMaricopa poll named his seafood van their favorite food source.
Shrimp from Rocky Point are his bestsellers but Ekelman keeps his chest freezer stocked with Caribbean lobster tails, mussels and a variety of fish, too. An extension cord plugged into a gas-powered generator keeps everything frozen even when it’s 115 degrees outside.
“If it was sitting in a cooler in ice, it may be a little weird,” Ekelman said.
Selling seafood out of a van has provided Ekelman, a single father of two teenage boys, with enough to pay his bills and keep a roof over their heads. He feels more blessed than he did 15 years ago during the Great Recession.
Ekelman bought his first home in 2008, then lost his job as a carpet and air duct cleaner.
“Long story short, I ended up having to short sell my home, lived with my parents for a year and a half. My dad said come do this,” Ekelman said.
His father, a former door-to-door meat salesman, ventured into the roadside seafood business 40 years ago. Ekelman said his dad used wet rags to keep himself cool during the summer months.
“I did it one year like that. Why would you do that when you could buy a $130 air conditioner? I made a stand, put it in my window, now I have a little cold room,” Ekelman said, pointing to the curtains at the front of his van.
His father retired more than a decade ago and Ekelman retained many loyal customers. The business has not changed much since then, including the rudimentary hand-painted signs along the highway. Those are informative – and nostalgic.
“Ahead: Rocky Point Shrimp,” one of them reads.
“I go to Home Depot, get the wood, get them cut and paint them up, that’s how my dad always did it,” Ekelman said. “I have people stopping all the time saying ‘I can make you professional signs’ and I‘m like, ‘Bro, this is what people see. It’s a lot cheaper.’”
Ekelman also gets his seafood from the same source: His dad’s friend who owns a distributing company and gets seafood shipped to the Valley from across the globe. The company supplies seafood to restaurants, cruise liners and small fry (we couldn’t resist) like Ekelman.
“A lot of people assume I am getting it all from Mexico, it’s not,” Ekelman said. “A lot of the shrimp do but I just had salmon from Alaska, my lobster tails right now are out of the Bahamas, I have got orange roughy from New Zealand, the catfish is from here in the U.S., all sorts of different places but it is wild caught.”
Ekelman said he gets a good deal buying wholesale but the COVID pandemic forced him to raise his prices.
“My lobster tails, I was paying $5 a tail cheaper near 2019, COVID hit and everything went up,” Ekelman said. “I have tried to keep it pretty reasonable but my profit margins have gone down.”
Shrimply the Best accepts cash and credit cards.
A pound of raw, frozen shrimp ranges from $9 to $12 per pound depending on the size and type. Ekelman sells a 5-pound bag of extra jumbo, U-15 size tiger shrimp for $60 a bag. Chilean black mussel meat is $10 per pound. Wild-caught U.S. catfish sells for $6 per pound and orange roughy, a deep-sea perch caught in the waters off New Zealand goes for $12 per pound.
When Ekelman has no customers, he sits in the cab of the van with his makeshift air conditioning unit and reads his Bible.
He’s especially proud of his lobster tails, which are nearly as big as his forearm. An 18–20-ounce tail goes for $36 or two for $68.
“Mother’s Day is crazy; I could fill this thing with lobster and it’s just gone,” Ekelman said. “Father’s Day? Well, we don’t get treated as well as the ladies do sometimes.”
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The crash occurred at 8:15 a.m. Wednesday in Welcome, Minnesota after the bus driver failed to yield to the truck, which had the right-of-way.
WELCOME, Minn. — Nine students were injured Wednesday morning when a truck crashed into a bus in southern Minnesota.
The crash occurred at 8:15 a.m. in Welcome, Minnesota after the bus driver failed to yield to the truck, which had the right-of-way at the intersection of County Road 7 and 280th Street, according to the Redwood County Sheriff’s Office. In a press release, officials say the nine students sustained “minor injuries” and were transported to a nearby hospital.
The initial investigation indicates that the truck, an F550, was traveling north on County Road 7, while the bus, which was providing service to the Wabasso Public School District, was traveling east on 280th Street. The news release says the truck had the right-of-way at the intersection.
“We are grateful that no serious injuries happened to our students, the driver or the other driver, however, nine students were transported to area hospitals for follow-up treatment,” Superintendent Jon Fulton said in a letter to parents. “… The District and 4.0 bus transportation company is praying for a speedy recovery for the students and families involved.”
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